


Blood

by Cythieus



Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Alternate Universe - Vampire, Blood, Blood Drinking, Blood Kink, Character Turned Into Vampire, F/M, Gen, Human/Vampire Relationship, Mycroft Being Mycroft, Oops all vampires, Post Reichenbach, Post Season 2, Post The Fall, Sherlock Holmes/Molly Hooper Fluff, Suddenly Vampires, Vampire Bites, Vampire Sex, Vampire Sherlock, Vampire Turning, god bless molly hooper
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-07-10
Updated: 2018-07-13
Packaged: 2019-06-08 08:52:36
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 3
Words: 7,039
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15239811
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Cythieus/pseuds/Cythieus
Summary: Sherlock told Molly he needed her. How he's managed to deduce her vampirism, she doesn't know. Molly will help him though. They'll bare the weight of these secrets together.





	1. Blood

**Author's Note:**

> This story was started in 2012 and originally posted as three small pieces that slowly got sequels. I have altered the text in these some so that there's more coherence between the three and an actual ending. That being said, the first part of this whole thing was intended to be a one-shot so the pacing may read kind of final.

The first few hours after Sherlock awakens will be critical.

There's no telling how long he's known or how he found out. In the short hours between him appearing in the dark corner of her lab proclaiming that she was important and that he needed her and the time when he dove off the roof of a moderately tall London landmark, she's had to pull herself together and figure out all that she can about what she is and how this is supposed to go.

Molly didn't think to ask Sherlock how he'd figured it out until it was too late. The planning was done and he was gone into the night. One of her first thoughts is to ring her mother. She was old school—would know how this was done and what all the risks were. Though the more she considered it, the more she realized that this was the last thing she wanted to deal with. It wasn't going to help her when it came time to keep Sherlock's secret.

She stays up most of the night poring over an old tome. It was one of the last things she ever remembered getting from her Gran—well the woman she knew as Gran. The only new thing in between the worn leather covers was a beautifully written message on the inside of the front cover. Never forget Molly, you're special. You're a Hoopengarner.

The old family name. It had been changed before the First World War. But right then she felt more of a connection to it than ever before. Molly must have stared at that page for several minutes, tracing her fingers over the indention where the pen had been pressed to the paper. The book smelt of old clothes and mothballs and stale attics kissed one too many times with the aroma of rain on their roofs.

When the time comes, when she finally wheels Sherlock in from outside she knows there is very little time. It is dangerous for her and him, even though the door was chained shut. She had reserved an old room at the far end of the building near where the renovations were taking place. Less chance of being found out there.

For the part of the night where she doesn't have her nose in a book she's gorging herself on blood. It's been years since she drank so much of it and she hates the way she feels after. She's alert and everything is rigid and alive. Cold is colder, warm warmer. Smells and touch are so vivid that simple sensations that are good become orgasmic. She avoids touching anyone or even being in their presence.

It's addictive and anyone that she happens to pass is hard to resist. Her mother always warned her that regular feeding makes it easier to avoid the effects. But she's never listened to mother. She let her father die when he could have easily opened a vein and healed himself. Molly knew how it worked. His cancer only persisted because he refused to go back to that life and her mother had just let him lay there and die.

So she didn't listen and she had never called her mother. But when Sherlock's body lying in front of her on the edge of life she can't help herself. She crawls atop him and sinks her fangs into the alabaster flesh of his shoulder, drinking him down until she can feel the thud of his heart through her whole body. Her pulse quickens too and her chest feels like it might explode.

Molly wrenches herself away and grabs a scalpel. Before she can rethink it she cuts deep into her wrist. It barely feels like a pinch. Seconds later she's holding her wrist to Sherlock's mouth. He suckles at her, seeming at first as if it's just a reaction. But as something takes hold of him he latches onto her arm. The strength is returning to his body.

She's only drank from someone once in uni and she's never turned anyone. She knew the mechanics of the process but she had no idea there was such pleasure involved. When Sherlock finally collapses onto the gurney, his lips stained with her blood, she breathes a sigh of relief. She needs to get him outside. In her current state she can easily lift him, but it might be suspicious if she tries.

In the time while she waits for his wounds to seal over she prepares the replacement body. Its quickly sorted. Since she knew what they were walking into she drew up all the paperwork last night (while drinking blood laced coffee).

* * *

* * *

Sherlock stirs beneath the thick yellow duvet and then all at once he wakes up mesmerized. He blinks back the surprise and glances to where Molly reclines in the chair at his side. "I feel—"

His words vibrate through her and it's then that she realizes how much the blood still has its hold on her. "—You need to feed. You're not fully healed yet." Molly remembered a time when she was a child and broke her leg. Her mother basically drowned her with pig's blood until the bone had repaired itself. And that had taken days. She could only imagine what kind of recovery time they were looking at here.

Sherlock drinks from her shoulder until she feels weak and some of the color has returned to his body. He doesn't have fangs yet, so the pinch of his teeth is minimal and she has to start the hole for him with a knife.

When he has had his fill Molly sighs and sits on the edge of the bed next to him. Her eyes are surrounded with dark, sagging skin, though she doesn't feel tired. There's something stern in her gaze as she regards Sherlock. "This is going to take days you know?" His eyes are bloodshot, but for the first time since the fall she thinks he's fully processing what she's saying. "You're not going to be like me. I'm a child of a half-vampire and a vampire…I don't need to feed. You can live without blood indefinitely, but if you don't get some once a month you'll go mad."

She knows he said it. Knows he meant it. But for the first time ever Molly feels like Sherlock truly needs her. He's all wrapped in bandages and he's not bleeding from the head anymore. When he speaks, he sounds like himself again, albeit a muted version.

"I can't exactly go around biting people. I'm supposed to be in hiding."

"I secured you a stash of blood from the hospital. Told them I tried to keep you alive off of it and just stole all that I could." It dawns on her right then that she still finds Sherlock attractive, yet her nervousness is suppressed. She's fearless and if the need took her she could tell him that she loved him right here. What's to stop her?

The tome she'd looked over talked about the effects of blood on half-breeds like her. It sounded like ecstasy when she read it, but really she likened it to a mixture of being really drunk without the disorientation and that one time she tried pot at uni.

"You're perfect." Her heart began to flutter as Sherlock closed his mouth as if to think. "My bespoke vampire—you do matter."

He was drunk off the taste of her. She probably smelled like food to him now. Going through the change was supposed to be euphoric at times, but hard at others.

"How long did you know?"

"Know what?"

"It sounds like you had me waiting in the wings. How long did you know what I was?"

"You neglect to breathe sometimes. You're too comfortable around death. And you work around it, yet smell like perfection. I figured that was some hormone you gave off to attract victims. It never seemed to frighten you that Moriarty might come for you—simply because you couldn't be killed through conventional means. Then there's the sun, it burns your eyes and you're never seen out in the daylight without sunglasses. The kicker for the whole thing was when I first met you I stole some of the coffee from you thermos. It tasted of blood…"

Molly just stared at him. "Guess I'm lucky you never came after me with some stakes and crosses." She let out a short, nervous giggle.

"Though I knew what you were, I never figured you to be a murderer. If you were there would have been a trail."

"Not if I knew how to hide bodies. I do work in a morgue."

"Do those things work?" he asked.

"Crosses and stakes? No. The stake will hurt, sure but it won't do much else. My mother has been staked five times in her life and she drained every one of the people who tried it."

"How does a vampire deliver a living child?"

Molly shrugged. It seemed weird to be having this conversation because she never had this conversation. Even within the family their gifts were rarely talked about and her gran and father made such a name for themselves that they had to shorten their name to Hooper to continue hiding.

"My father was the child of a half vampire and my mother was full—my gran turned her during the war, so when they had me I was half. Worked out sort of odd, I had the same gran for both parents."

"Wouldn't you be three quarters?"

Molly rolled her eyes. "It's not like race. It doesn't work that way. A half breed is made when any human blood enters the union. We don't fraction off like that. A lot of half breeds never know what they are and die of natural causes."

"Have you done this before?"

"What?"

"Any of it?"

Molly kills the lights and pushes him back down into bed. She's still much stronger than he is now and she can feel the strength pounding through her veins. It's dangerous. Molly could crave this—she could stay like this. Powerful and brave. High on blood.

The two of them are silent, but she can see him clearly in the darkness. "Once when I was in uni I drank a girl's blood. She was my roommate and I wanted to know what it felt like. I didn't kill her; still you probably think that sounds horrible."

Sherlock flashes a smile that is all too natural and she can tell that he's getting better. "No, just human."

There was a long road ahead of them, but Molly was glad to have someone to share her secret with. Maybe that was how all of this started, with her secret. Sherlock had to know he could trust her because she had kept this to herself all of this time. Now they were on equal footing, depending on one to hold this truth close and never let another soul know. Part of Molly nagged because she had just condemned Sherlock to a potential eternity of seeking out victims to drain if she couldn't secure enough blood. But Sherlock was brilliant and they had forever to work it out.


	2. Chapter 2

"In vampire circles it makes you my child." Molly tries to recall how she would have acted if Sherlock asked her that question nine weeks ago. What are you to me? Her life before Sherlock is a dream.

He looks at her, his eyes gleam with the lights of London below them and she can't quite tell what he is thinking. In a lot of ways he's like her child. Sherlock refuses to hunt without her, though it was his idea. They feed once a week. Molly takes less than him because she can survive without it. Already she feels it affecting her.

They don't kill the innocent. But they'll run out of criminals, pimps and drug dealers if they keep it up at this rate. She sleeps less and the sun hurts her eyes more. Sunglasses are necessary on even cloudy days now. It is easier to do certain things. The other day Greg Lestrade almost caught her moving a corpse that weighed fourteen stone by herself. If she hadn't recognised his gait trailing toward the morgue doors and recognized the subtle beat of his heart she would have had a lot to explain.

Sherlock points to a man exiting a van outside of a flat. They're close to Baker Street. Molly wonders, briefly, if he would want to just peek in and check on John. Before she can let the scenario play itself out in her head, Sherlock grabs her at the shoulder. "There—this is what we've been waiting for."

"Are you sure?"

"One of Moriarty's men, Arthur Sullivan, I checked databases at the Thames House."

"Thames House—you broke into MI5 headquarters?"

Sherlock shook his head. "I broke into Mycroft's flat and used his laptop."

That is better. "Are we doing this like the previous times?"

Sherlock shook his head. "You lead."

"Me?"

"You're still faster than me. You heal faster."

"That's because I've got practice. If you'd just let me show you—"

He shushes her. "If you'd just do like a good mother and prepare the meal..."

"I'm not your mum. There's a special bond between a vampire and a sire—but many people bite friends, siblings, lovers…" Her words trail off and she can feel old Molly slipping through.

"Please."

And Molly's leading the charge. She understands why he wants her to do it. But she wants him to come out and say it. On their last outing a man stabbed Sherlock in the chest with a huge knife. It wasn't silver so it essentially didn't do any harm. Still, Molly saw the utter shock plastered across his face and he wouldn't stop trembling. It's not the pain; it's not even the surprise. It's knowing that you should be dead, that something is stuck into your heart and you're not alive anymore that causes it.

She had a similar experience when she was fourteen.

Sherlock sniffs the air seconds before the rain starts. Molly grumbles as she pulls her hair back into a ponytail. The rain grows heavier by the second and Sherlock leans close. "What is it?"

"Don't trust your nose anymore."

"What?"

"Our sense of smell is so sensitive. Rain just makes us rubbish at it. Things get mixed together and body odours and old blood stains and other things run down the street and leave false trails. So just forget about your nose, go on everything else."

Molly tackles Arthur to the ground. The height of her fall breaks his legs and knocks him face first to the concrete. She digs her fingers deep into his hair and pulls him up until his neck is exposed. A vein ripples just on the surface and Molly can swear she hears the blood coursing through his body. He's a plump, ginger man with scraggly hair. A thing she (or any other woman) wouldn't give a second glance in a pub.

But she's salivating to take him now. He's able to give half of a muffled cry through his blood filled mouth before she sinks her fangs into his neck. Molly thought that this part would become mundane after doing it so often. She was so wrong. It was just different enough every time. It was like sex, except there was a clear winner.

She can't tell how long she's on Arthur, but she knows that she'll ride the last bit of life out of him before long. When she feels Sherlock at her side, she relinquishes the honour over to him. Molly stands and watches him drain the blood from the body. In the seconds and minutes immediately after feeding it's like someone pushed the slider to maximum and broke it off. She's never seen him kill before, usually he goes first. But Molly's thrilled and frightened as she watches him.

Sherlock lifts his face from Arthur's neck to indicate that he's done. The drill is the same from here. They break him down, fold him up and stuff him into the ventilation of what appears to be a derelict building that he was parked outside of.

The rain outside is impossibly loud and even the most faded of the wallpapered rooms inside of the building screams with a muted vibrancy. They search the building because Sherlock has a suspicion. Why would Moriarty's former crime syndicate be visiting an abandoned building? On the fifth floor they find out why. There are crates of guns ranging from pistols to rocket launchers. Some briefcases filled with money sit on the other side of the room. Whoever was supposed to be here vacated and left it all behind. But it was meant to be some kind of deal. Molly didn't have to be Sherlock to figure that out.

It's already too late when she smells the Potassium perchlorate in the air. The doors explode and there's a blinding flash immediately after. Several boots crowd into the room and she's unsure of which way she's facing.

The air fills with men commanding them not to move. But she hears the voice on the radio, a familiar voice, give the order. "Shoot to kill."

She's moving in a daze and Sherlock suddenly tackles her. She's still blind and he's got her cradled in his arms, dashing through the cacophony of gunfire. She swears she can feel the heat of each muzzle burst and she clutches tight to Sherlock's body. He trips against something and she's flying through the air. The rain's coursing over her body as she sails downward.

Something hot rips violently into Molly's lower torso and she yelps out. The pain's more a shock than anything else but she falls further than the floor should have been. Just before she hits the ground the realization hits her that they've gone through a window…five stories up. They land on the roof of a ragtop convertible and it's just enough to make the fall palatable.

Molly's vision begins to clear and she can hear the men in the room behind them over the dying ringing in her ears. Sherlock's there and he fared better somehow. "This way." He leads her aching body and all into the alley. From there they work their way through the city. They can't catch a taxi looking like this. So they press on.

"We need to go somewhere else," Molly says. "Just in case."

"Do you know a place?"

She nods.

* * *

* * *

The old row house is a place she remembers visiting as a child. It smells the same now as it did back then and she hates it. They shut the door and make their way through the darkness of the house toward one of the bathrooms (they don't need lights anyway). Molly leads him into the small space, whimpering as she walks.

"You've dislocated your arm and there's a pair of bullets in your lower abdomen."

"Are you okay?"

Sherlock looks at her. "Stop worrying over me. You're hurt. I can fix the arm, but the bullets—I might have to bite them out."

"You've lost your scarf," Molly says, her tone weak.

He's only half listening to her, it seems, as he prepares to tug the arm back into its socket. "If Mycroft finds it, the word will be out."

"That was Mycroft—on the radio?"

"Yes."

"Will he…tell anyone?"

Sherlock shook his head. "Still, I suppose I will need to tell him sooner, rather than later. Okay. Molly I need you to bite down on my hand and…" the second her teeth touch his hand he jerks her arm up until it slides into place.

She cries out, biting him till a little of his freshly procured blood escapes into her mouth. After the pain subsides Sherlock offers to bite the bullets out for her. She's not sure if he's kidding or actually thinks that's a good option. But she declines.

When they're sure that the heat's died down they head back to her flat. Molly leans on the bathroom sink while Sherlock digs the bullets out with some medical instruments (no doubt stolen from Bart's). He's gentle with the job, taking his time. It takes him several minutes to move the first bullet to the surface.

"You don't have to worry about dying, you know? It's tried and true. We're very hard to kill."

"Hold still."

"I know that's why you were worried about attacking first. I had something like what happened to you with the knife happen to me."

"Molly."

She's rambling again. "When I was fourteen, I didn't know what I was really. I didn't understand it. My mum and dad sneaked blood into my drinks occasionally to make sure I could still keep it down when I got older. But the first time I knew what I was—I was fourteen and a lorry hit me."

Sherlock pauses to look at her.

"It rounded a corner badly and hit me and this other girl, Cindy, while we were riding bikes. Cindy was mangled, died at the scene. I broke my back. Before the paramedics came my mother just rushed me inside and gorged me on blood. I was injured so badly that I didn't understand till later. I do remember feeling like this was it. I was dead. I felt guilty after when I realized Cindy wasn't coming back—that girl hated me and I couldn't stop crying over her. That seems so foreign now."

The second bullet comes out easier.

Molly smiles. "Hey, you're all right at that. Maybe you should have been a doctor."

Sherlock sighs. "I wanted to be a pirate." He wraps her wounds and puts the instrument into a glass of scotch on the counter to clean it. Carefully he helps her down from the sink.

"A pirate, really?"

"We all had our dreams, Molly."

She nods. "I wanted to be a princess—cliché, I know. But like a doctor-princess."

Sherlock heads out the bathroom door. "You're halfway there, you might still make it."

Molly cleans the sink off and put things back in order. Sherlock never seemed to be able to do those things, but really he's not meant to. He's too great for menial tasks. The longer she's around him the easier it is to see. Sherlock's truly special, more so now. But he was special before. He mattered.

She catches a glimpse of herself in the mirror and despite the shit they got into tonight she somehow looks prettier. She looks younger for sure. The bags under her eyes are gone and her skin has a soft rosy hue around the cheeks. When Kara from work asked her what she had been using, she'd just chuckled and figured it to be one of those things women did where they threw out random compliments. The truth was Molly felt more attractive and it had to be the blood. More than that, it had to be Sherlock.

He's in her blood and she's in his. She's changing for the better because of him. She never thought killing would be for the better, but it is. She slips out of her jeans and flicks the bathroom light off. She finds Sherlock out on the sofa flipping through the channels. Molly drops onto the couch next to him and snatches for the remote. "Just give it. You're going too bloody fast!"

Sherlock hands the remote over and Molly presses the channel up button. "Matt Smith and Katy Perry are on Graham Norton." He can't go out often and he's read all of her books, so Sherlock spends his spare time memorizing the schedule for the telly. It's a waste of a great mind, but its damn useful.

"Oh Matt Smith—can't miss that one. I can't believe that bastard Moffat's making us wait till autumn for more Doctor Who—it's not like he's making other shows."

"To hear you tell it, it's not like the man does anything except splash around in a big tower full of golden coins." He scrunches his face up to imitate her. "Moffat's just taking the piss out of all of us—the man works on ten episodes a year. If he was American they'd have him do twice that many…" he trails off as Molly pummels him with a sofa cushion.

Yeah, Sherlock's making everything better…and maybe she's made him better too.


	3. III

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Molly's forgotten her life before she and Sherlock were...like this, but is she changing him or is it him that's changing her?

Molly could remember the exact second it started, but she can't reason why it happened at all. Maybe it was simple inevitability. Maybe it was all more innocent than she let on.

It's not sex. It's never sex, never has been. It's better. Sherlock is holding her down at the wrists, his fangs penetrating the soft flesh where her neck becomes her shoulder. He's shirtless and despite the fact that he's just as cold as she is, he always feels warm when he's drinking her and…why was his goddamn shirt always off? Does he think he's Jacob Black?

His body is different than the first time she saw him. He's slender, but with more definition. Not having anything to eat except blood and caffeine does wonders for a vampire in Sherlock's shape. She fights the urge to struggle free (because let's be honest, he's still not stronger than her) and run her fingers along his chest. This feels dirty and somehow she thinks if they just fucked and got it over with that the awkwardness would end.

Sherlock finishes and for a moment she's swimming in an overwhelming light-headed feeling. She's not sure of the science behind vampires or even if there is all that much science to the supernatural undead, but she's certain that whatever it is that happens when a vampire bites another in this way is better than orgasm.

There's no lights on in the house and for the most part they've no need for them. Molly can see Sherlock sitting on the corner of the bed staring at the patterns in the carpet. When the waves of euphoria have subsided enough for her to move, she sits up grabs him at the chin. She licks the remnants of her blood from his lips and for a brief moment it's as if they kiss. That quickly subsides.

Molly sits on the bed next to him trying to recall if she had embarrassed herself. Sherlock always drank from her and after the feeling was the same, but she didn't want to risk letting out some embarrassing moan or saying the wrong thing in the middle of it all. They never talked during and they rarely discussed it later. He hadn't asked permission the first time. Though if he had she would have over thought it and denied him more than likely.

She wondered if he did it out of convenience or attraction. A thought like that would have gone unanimously to the former for the old Molly, but she was aware of the changes her body was undergoing. Her hair was shinier and luscious now. There was a wideness to her hips that hadn't existed before and her breasts had gained a cup size. She looked awake and alert all of the time now. But she doubted Sherlock cared about these things.

Her clothes don't fit well anymore, or they don't fit the way she used to like them. But she hasn't had time to shop for more. She cleans the wound in her neck before hiding it beneath a scarf and dresses in a fresh shirt, skirt and leggings. She's pulling her hair up into a ponytail when she steps into the room, Sherlock's gotten into his shirt. "Have you talked to Mycroft yet?"

"No," Sherlock says.

"He knows about us now."

"You presume he knows based on the fact that he found a piece of blood covered cloth in a dank warehouse operated by Moriarty. We've checked my so called grave for three weeks straight now and we've looked for any signs he might contact either myself or you and we've seen nothing to indicate that he knows what happened."

"It really is a problem for you? You get one theory in your head and once you think it's solid you protect it from all other logical explanation."

"If there's a better theory I'd be happy for you to tell me what it is."

Molly sighs. "It could be that he's figured out that you were protecting something or someone and will come back on your own if it's safe. Any attempt for him to look for you would arouse suspicion. If he dug your grave up it would tip anyone watching off. If people knew he thought you were alive, they'd be looking for you too."

"Hmm."

"Is that all you've got to say then?"

"There's always this." He dashes the distance between them and flings Molly back against the headboard of the bed. It's not enough force to hurt her, but she feels the bed post dig into the wall and before she knows what's happening Sherlock's on top of her ripping at the black fabric of the leggings and digging his fangs into the soft, cool flesh of her inner thigh. She stifles a scream and brings her leg up instinctively.

This is new. Before it's always been her neck or an arm. He's never drank from her this way. She presses her back into the bed to raise her thigh to a better level. Her other leg wraps around the side of his neck and dangles down his back.

Molly's head swims with a thousand sensations that bury any question of why he's doing this. Who cares? It might be manipulation, but it was something tangible. No more kisses on the cheek or clever quips about her hair. The vampire in Sherlock spurred him to passion in areas where he had previously been lacking it.

The last bite was for show. He's done almost as soon as it began and Molly's left discarding the ripped leggings as she climbs from the bed. The skirt will hide the wound well enough and in a few hours she'll be healed. She has to get out of the house—sitting here with him is too much. She heads for the door of the flat and Sherlock watches as she leaves.

"Where are you going?"

"Out to get more blood. Someone drank me dry," Molly says over her shoulder. There's a bit of sass in her voice, but she doesn't care.

Their world is hunting now. The moments between finding and killing Moriarty's men are extraneous—they're ellipses, they're the low point between the crests of two waves. London is a hotbed for his former syndicate and with the reins of power unclaimed there are all manner of thugs battling for position. It afforded them a rare opportunity. Sherlock monitored the criminals as best he could and they took out the ones who seemed to be gaining a following.

It kept the whole organization (if one could still call it that) unstable and because of the nature of the infighting the idea that they might be killing one another took care of any suspicion.

Molly takes a shift spur of the moment to avoid Sherlock. She drifts through another dull day at the mortuary. Halfway through her lunch she throws up the half of her soup that she'd eaten. Sherlock's drank too much again, she can't keep normal food down anymore without the aid of blood. Her veins are on fire and her head is pounding as she makes her way through the halls of St. Bart's. Every person she passes smells like food. She can see the vein in their neck thudding against the outer membrane of skin. If she bit them just right the blood would practically drain itself into her mouth. That easy.

She knew it was wrong, that was why she didn't do it. It wasn't like all that fiction where it was too hard to resist the urge. She was a vampire, but she still had self-control.

With a few pints of blood from the supply room Molly makes her way to the handicap stall in the loo. She devours four pints before she realizes it. She'll pack some home for Sherlock—if he's well fed he'll be less inclined to drink so heavily from her. But it wasn't as if the biting was about feeding. He derived pleasure from it, Molly was sure.

As she neared her workbench someone could be heard coming around the corner into the mortuary. The gait is familiar, purposeful and with a mysterious metallic third step. The pop of something with a metal frame is in this person's walk. A leg brace? No.

"We've met before a few times, Miss Hooper. I'm sure you remember." Mycroft announces himself just before he comes into view. He stabs the shimmering tip of his umbrella into the tile as he comes to a stop.

"Mister Holmes? You've come by to see me?"

"Sherlock considered you an acquaintance, did he not?" asked Mycroft. "He and I had grown distant over the past several years, as you could probably tell. Still, I've been trying to compile a picture of who my brother was based on the opinions of his friends and loved ones. I was wondering if you'd mind going for a ride to discuss some things?"

"I can't really. Despite what you might think of me, the memory of Sherlock isn't something I could just go over so easily. I was in love with him…"

"Infatuated," Mycroft corrects her.

Molly swallows. "Talking about him for any period of time still gets to me."

"Grieving. I see." Mycroft steps around to her other side and points with the umbrella. "It's odd though. You're healthier than before, taking better care of you hair, gaining weight where it matters and despite the paler look, you're alert and giving off more of a feeling of more sexual awareness."

"What are you…"

"Come now, Miss Hooper. You've been dousing this room in hormones since I entered. Were I unaware of the fact my heart would be pounding out of my chest."

"Sherlock inspired me to be more confident." She keeps up the lie though it's obvious he knows. The hormone thing is predatory. Vampires do it unaware sometimes, usually the hormones at least obeyed sexual preference. But in a pinch a vampire could entice anyone that might be attracted, it was evolutionary. She fought to stifle it.

"And what a long way inspiration seems to have gone in a short time."

"Stop."

"The truth will come out soon enough, there's not much point in you hiding it anymore."

"Stop it." Molly could hear the growl in her own voice now. Something sharp and violent was rising up inside of her.

"I can't tell, but the tone of your voice sounds vaguely like a threat. I'm not sure why Miss Hooper. I only came to discuss the particulars of my brother's untimely passing…"

She couldn't be asked to hold back any longer. Molly dashes the distance between herself and the door in a flash, slamming and locking it. It was the only exit. She had Mycroft around the collar a few short moments later and was lifting him until the umbrella clattered to the floor haphazardly.

Molly pushes him back against the wall, barring her fangs at him. "You'll keep his name out of your mouth—this isn't another game. John told me what you did, how you sold your brother out. I would suggest you count yourself lucky that Sherlock scarified himself and his life to protect yours. Otherwise I might drink you dry here and now."

Her chest swells and falls in rapid succession and Molly can't remember a single time she's ever been angrier. An outsider would have guessed Molly lost control, but this was different. She had no issue with killing to protect Sherlock. The realization struck her as odder than the actuality of what she was doing. And it seemed to be what convinced Mycroft.

"I see," he manages before Molly lets him go. He struggles to get his collar back into place as he steps away from her. She doesn't make any sudden movements, not that it would matter. Mycroft seems just as collected as when he first entered the room. The Ice Man. Sherlock had told her about the nickname Moriarty had for his brother. He did not divulge his own nickname though—it was of no relevance, or so he said.

"Mycroft…"

"As I can see here you're clearly stricken with bouts of grief over his death. I can be assured that you _were_ a loyal friend to him and you _would_ do to anything that he's asked of you, had there been such a thing." Mycroft was speaking in a not-so-subtle-code, he knew that she was going to guard Sherlock and his secret; he had seen the seriousness in her eyes.

"I would."

Her fangs had retracted themselves by now and the fierceness was draining out of her features. Mycroft gathered his umbrella up off the floor and leaned down on the curved handle. "I think at this juncture the need for our ride has diminished," Mycroft said. "You're clearly not feeling up for it. But if at any time you need anything, monetary or otherwise just call on me."

"I haven't got your number."

"Just drop by Thames House," he gave a completely Cheshire grin before turning to head out of the room. "Good day, Doctor Hooper."

"Good day, Mister Holmes."

If he was anything like his brother, Mycroft probably picked her apart before he even entered the room. Did he realize his brother's fangs had been sunken into various parts of her body just hours before? He didn't seem surprised by Molly's fangs or the speed with which she moved. Mycroft was said to be keeping tabs on everyone, had he known about her for some time?

All at once she wonders if the government knew about her kind, there always seemed to be that possibility. But she had never given it much thought. Molly shrugs it off and begins to pack her things to head home. She loads a cooler with blood destined for Sherlock—he preferred his blood warmed naturally, perhaps he would request that she gorged herself and he drank it from her?

Molly sits on the sofa next to Sherlock that night flipping through a copy of Cosmo with a rerun of Downton Abbey playing in the background. She won't tell him what happened or that Mycroft visited her. Somehow actively being a vampire has made lying easier over all. She folds the magazine at the spine and flips it over to show Sherlock a picture of a girl with while blonde streaks in her shimmering hair.

"I want my hair like this," Molly says.

"I could dye it."

"You? Dying hair?" Molly couldn't help but burst into laughter. She stops when she realizes that even her laugh is unfamiliar to her now. How much has being on blood changed her?

Sherlock grimaced. "I've had to disguise myself on more than one occasion. Normally it's just a hat or a phony accent. But on occasion there's been hair dying or even makeshift prosthetics involved…"

"You never cease to amaze me," Molly says. She dropped the magazine and Sherlock caught it a moment before the ground, even with the vampire reflexes sometimes her clumsy nature took over. He spread its pages open and looked at the photo spread. It was a piece describing what made love-bites sexy.

"You avoided this on purpose," Sherlock says scanning the page. "Why?"

Molly bit her lip. "It didn't suit my interests."

Sherlock's reading the article now, studying the pictures and Molly can tell just form his expression that he's deducing something. He's cooking up some scheme. He tosses the magazine to the side. "Why don't we test their theory?" he asks.

"What?"

"Love-bites, I've never given one before." You could have fooled me. Sherlock's almost instantly on top of her, his nose in the nape of her neck. "Have you eaten yet?" His voice was muffled against her skin. He knew the answer, he was probing for permission for something else.

"Yes."

He made some primal sound that was very un-Sherlock and at the same time it fit the moment and covered her in goose pimples. He bit softly, his fangs weren't out. He sucked at her skin playfully and let his tongue pass over the spot. She could feel the blood rising to the spot where he worked.

"What's this?" his lips were hovering just above her skin now, his words vibrated through neck. "Where did you go today?"

Sherlock was plucking a hair from her undershirt. His pale eyes move over the hair and then back to her suspiciously. "I went to work," she says weakly, she's the old Molly suddenly.

"And I take it that my dear brother stopped by…"

"I can explain—he's not actually upset. Not anymore, I handled the situation," Molly says.

Sherlock rose from the couch, wiping his hand across his mouth to clear blood away. "A lie of omission is still a lie. Don't ever think you can lie to me," Sherlock is on his feet heading for the door.

"Where are you going?" Molly asks sitting up.

"I've suddenly lost my appetite."

The first few times she had chased after him worrying that this was it for the two of them. Molly knew better. Sherlock’s anger would subside and he’d come back to press his fangs into her neck. Even with the blood bags being there he would drink from her. It was only a matter of time before the drinking became something else. 

Molly rummages through her purse finding her thermos. She’s hidden two pints of O-positive inside that she drinks hungrily, letting some of it spill out of the sides of her mouth. He’ll be hungry later and she will need all the extra blood she can muster. 


End file.
